Sunday, February 9th 2020 became my 777th consecutive day meditating.

you: How do you define meditation, Kenji?

me: I believe the act of meditation (or meditating) is going into your self.

You may have another definition for it, and that is ok. The following is what I will be answering in this story:

What were the essential lessons learned in 777 days?

What about meditation is not enough?

Let’s begin.

The day was December 25, 2017 at my mother’s home in Brooklyn. My friend Jason Mowatt was having holiday dinner with my family. After dinner, my mom surprised me with a gift of the Muse Headband. Muse is a brain sensing headband that is designed to help a person meditate by providing real-time audio and visual feedback on their meditative state through the companion app. Simply put, you know when you are meditating when you use Muse. I was hype about the present because I knew Jason had been using it for a month and he let me know on multiple occasions that Muse taught him how to meditate. Jason found meditation because his boss at a Brooklyn based tech startup recommended it. He was also managing complexity with a new startup of his own called Trap Karaoke. Jason was my spark.

Start Where You Stand and Have a Seat

The pledge I took on Christmas happened when Jason said “let’s meditate everyday for a year and see what happens.” I was reluctant because I had just lost my job and was in a self-pity party that I was only invited to. But I knew a friend like Jason would not just throw me under the bus by giving me a challenge I could not handle; so I accepted! Jason said, “let’s start you NOW”. My first session was three minutes, no cap.

Each time I meditated in the first few days felt like the first time. Muse is a form of meditation that works on increasing focused-attention. Other meditations do different things so it’s important to know that there is not one way to meditate. In the first few days my Calm Score and my “birds” increased (real quick: Calm score is the meditation metric Muse uses and birds are a feedback tool that make a “chirp” sound from your phone or you earbuds when you drop into the meditative state). I was getting positive reinforcement from the digital feedback, keeping me motivated to continue practicing. My first 30-days of meditating was about getting used to waking up and meditating first thing. I kept my Muse on the side of my bed. I became obsessed. I was hooked.

Each time I meditated in the first few days felt like the first time.

Anxiety Does Not Like to Meditate

Most of my life I have dealt with anxiety but only after college was I able to put a name to the feelings. The intense thoughts racing to future events that had not taken place, pounding heart beats and a lack of concentration. I did not feel comfortable in my own skin, my body-brain connection was like a Fivio Foreign record. One time at an old ad agency job I recall having to leave the building in the middle of the day due to what ended up being told to me later by a specialist was a panic attack. Well, around the 45-day mark I started to notice that each day I began with meditation ended without any intense racing thoughts, slower heart rate and more attention. Definitely no panic attacks popped off. The results in my real-life were showing themselves to me slowly while I also had a full dashboard of Muse data to look back on. My anxiety was all but gone within 45-days. While I can not promise this will be the same results for you, I invite you to try. February 2018 I increased my 7-minute meditation sessions to 10-minutes.

I did not feel comfortable in my own skin, my body-brain connection was like a Fivio Foreign record.

Don’t Leave Home Without (Doing) It

You may be like me, and you have a lot to do in the mornings. Time is short and the task list is long. What I learned within 100-days was get your session in before you leave your front door. The world does not deserve you before you deserve you. On the days I left my home without meditating I found that I had an increase in tension and expectation that something or someone would disagree with my intentions. It was strange at first, then I realized my meditation muscle had been making me more mindful and to keep it up I had to keep disciplined to what got me to this place.

At this time I was in rare air of the 100 Birds club (quick note: much more on this later / 100 bird “chirps” in 10 minutes). When on point I was showing up as my best version in most occasions because I was calm, collected and able to concentrate for long periods of time.

Focus is a Muscle Meant for Humble Flexing

The turn occurred around the 1-year mark. I had just too much focus on the wrong things. By now I was at a state in which I thought I was invincible. Personally, I had bounced back career wise, starting my own creative marketing consultancy. I was feeling myself. But the meditations were getting longer and my Calm scores were not necessarily getting much better.

It was around this time that I had to be honest with myself, “You have been meditating every day but what have you been meditating on?” This was the magic question. My advisor Sanyaku Sheps-Amare turned on the lightbulb. This moment brought me back to a memory that I had buried deep within my subconscious.

Years ago around the time when I learned I had anxiety I was first told by a neurologist that I had epilepsy. “Wow”. I know. Shocked me, too. First thing I was told to chill on was alcohol, because the alcohol could have been causing electric disturbances in my head. The brain doc did a battery of tests in the office, overnight at home, 3-day overnight in NYU. I mean, docs literally tried to flash lights to induce seizures for 3-days straight. Oh, the horror. But nothing happened. Call it a blessing from the most high or just a random luck of fate, but by the time I was back in the neurologist office I was being instructed to visit the mindful based stress reduction (MBSR) specialist. At the time I didn’t know who he was or what he did. The specialist had me do a body-scan from my feet to my head and he suggested that I come back and that my issues may be anxiety related. I thought he was wrong and my stubbornness pushed me back into the world without a graceful understanding of my condition.

Now I was at an impasse; continue to meditate only with my Muse Headband & App or begin to explore the labyrinth of meditation practices with a culturally-agnostic approach based on making positive life changes.

This is a good time for a meditation. Do exactly as I say, just this once. Sit where you are: close your eyes, put your hands where ever you want, and breathe in and out through your nose. Allow your attention to go where it goes, if thoughts arise, say “hi thoughts, what’s poppin?”. Now, as you have this dialogue with your thoughts see if you can ask your thoughts to allow you to complete five (only five) full breath cycles (meaning: one cycle = four count of breathing in and four count of breathing out). Let’s begin I’ll give you a minute to try. ~55 seconds

What did you experience? Willing to try it again? If so, let me give you a meditation secret that I wish I had known, this is where I answer the question, What about meditation is not enough?

Meditation is not Peace

Yes, I got this wrong for nearly two years. I kept trying to make meditation THE thing and not the map of the thing. If a teacher told you meditation = peace and you didn’t call cap, then I have a brownstone in Harlem that I can sell you for $1.

Important spiritual growth does not happen when you are meditating, it happens when you are in the midst of challenges — when you are anxious, afraid, worried, angry or grieving.

After weeks and months of practice you realize you have a reset button that is “Peace”. This peace is a choice; that is the advanced meditation. Your mate OD’s on you over text message, you will learn to respond with a space in between the event and your response. This is the choice that you will learn to master. The next essay I publish will be about how to write and use a meditation script that can become the blueprint for automatic responses to life’s challenges.

Find Your Meditation

My meditation practice began with the Concentration style using neurofeedback device Muse. Over time, I began investigating the following methods that Mark Koester so effectively shares as a top ten list based on a meditation research study with Western meditators. It is important to know that you do not have to be of a religion, spiritual path or identify with any theistic tradition to enjoy the benefits of meditation. After one year of using Muse everyday I began using the Muse app on the timed (non-neurofeedback) setting or without the device, at all, employing the Insight style of meditation. Insight or open monitoring was challenging because I noticed everything and part of me was afraid of what my unchecked thoughts could do. Upon two years of meditating, my thoughts scared me less and they began to feel like a puppy that I needed to pet and talk to kindly, sometimes giving a treat to show I care. Today I like to think of myself as a black Professor X and my meditation practice as a super power that I can use to tap into certain styles when I need certain results. This is serious work that can be playful fun. My daily sessions number 2–3 (morning, afternoon, evening) and the time duration between 10 minutes and an hour.

Upon two years of meditating, my thoughts scared me less and they began to feel like a puppy that I needed to pet and talk to kindly, sometimes giving a treat to show I care.

Find Your Tribe

A community is about common unity, and the 100 Birds meditation group chat is that for me. In November 2018 Sickamore and Kev Storey became my accountability partners in meditation then we started to reach out to friends that also bought a Muse. As a new year’s resolution in December 2018 we began adding friends and acquaintances that we knew had bought a Muse headband due to the propagation of the results that everyone had been hearing. Roughly 20 people of color are meditating daily and sharing their results meditating with Muse and various other styles. One of the group’s members, Marcus Troy shared with me, “Meditation has helped me tap into my creative spirit which helped me find the inspiration to create behind my desires. Being part of a meditation community fueled my process”; this comes from the mind of one of the most creative individuals in the world today. In 2020 with this essay being published I hope to see the group grow as a way to provide a community for the meditation curious.

Meditation is Not a Panacea

Meditation is not a solution or remedy for all difficulties or dis-eases. The practice did not make me the greatest version of myself. It did not take away my problems, my traumas or my discomfort of being alone with my thoughts. What meditating did do was make me acutely aware of the fact that I WAS NOT facing my fears. Meditating paused and caused me, after 750 days, to remove crutches that were holding me back; at least causing me not to move forward. This is the greatest gift I have and that I can share with you today, being able during meditation to sit with all that is unwell inside you is both the obstacle and the way. If you learn the inner game then you can best play with what and who is outside. The outside may tell you that sleep, oxygen utilization, water intake, diet, supplements and habits may be what you turn to work on. You are your panacea, that which is most high and that which is most low. I have no universal remedy to sell you at this time. The essentials are already there, you have to set your self free.

I look forward to sharing meditation with you in the future.

Special Thanks

George Mumford — If it were not for your work with MJ and Kobe during their NBA Hall of Fame careers and your incredible book The Mindful Athlete I may have had more apprehension to starting my meditation practice. Learning George Mumford had taught two of the greats made meditation both relatable and aspirational to me.

Kobe Bryant — While working at Nike I pitched and pitched and pitched some more to get the Nike Basketball team or the Nike NYHQ team to do a massive guided meditation in your honor as you were making your final NBA city stops as a player. You had bigger plans! As always, the Mamba knows. Your dedication to the art of mindfulness and the practice of meditation is profound. Your application of meditation in a super competitive sport of professional basketball goes to show that anyone can “sit”.

Daniel Goleman & Richard Davidson — Your 80 plus years combined experienced in studying meditation’s lasting impact of mind, brain body permanently embedded itself on my psyche. Both of you men showed me that the focus should not be so much on the states experienced but the traits cultivated. Altered Traits is an achievement of the greatest order.

Sanyaku Sheps-Amare — The counsel you gave me on meditation script writing has been game changing. Understanding how words of power; whether called Mantras, Heka or Zikr are here as ancient words (sounds) for self-realization is life altering. The work you do with BlueLeaf Advisors is needed for all that desire personal advising and social impact advising with a care for their endeavor’s spiritual well-being.

Muse — Thanks for being my entry way into a meditation practice. You know the scouts.